Immigration reform, once a hot-button issue, has been largely ignored the past year, pushed aside while the financial crisis and health care reform dominate. But our nation’s immigration system is as broken as ever, and the need for reform remains urgent.

The good news is that while it might not have garnered many national headlines lately, immigration legislation hasn’t gone away. In fact, it’s been slowly heating up for months. And now we’re closer than ever to achieving comprehensive immigration reform. The slow build began this past fall, when the faith community rallied around the need for reform, calling it a “human, moral issue.”

At the same time, Senators  Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have been diligently working on a bill that they believe can get bipartisan support. They’re on the verge of introducing it later this month, and pushing for it’s passive aggressively. While cautiously optimistic about its potential for passage, Graham maintains that it will require the support of at least one more Republic Senator.

Could Texas’ John Cornyn (the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee’s Immigration, Refugees and Border Security subcommittee) be the answer?

I sincerely hope so. The Republican Senator has long indicated he’d be willing to support the right comprehensive immigration reform bill, as he explained in this video.

And the faith community is hoping so too. According to Rick Casey’s recent article in the Houston Chronicle, they are reaching out to Cornyn. Three weeks ago, the Senator met with a Catholic archbishop, a Luteran bishop, rabbis, and other religious leaders to talk about the issue. According to the article:

They were also greeted by about 6,000 postcards piled in stacks on the large conference table around which the group would sit.

The men of the cloth wanted to talk to him about what they see as the biblical and moral imperative of immigration reform. But they also wanted to send a practical political message.

At a time when anger is the currency of the political realm, much of it aimed at illegal immigrants, the religious leaders were saying to Cornyn that they will have his back if he risks becoming a target of that anger by helping craft and pass comprehensive immigration reform.

This, combined with President Obama’s  

After meeting with Schumer, Cornyn is careful not to promise that reform will come this year, warning the religious community that a bill would not be passed this year:

That was set when Graham announced after meeting with Obama that efforts on immigration were dead if the president insisted on passing health care reform by a simple majority in the Senate.

But several of the religious leaders who met with Cornyn said they were glad to see the conversation begin in Washington again. And they plan to keep it going in their churches, building an ever larger constituency for reform.

I appreciate that goodwill for immigration reform remains, but I have to ask myself: if it doesn’t happen this year, then when? How much longer can we really afford to wait?

This, combined with President Obama’s recent immigration meetings, indicate that our nation is poised to try to pass an updated version of legislation that suffered a crushing defeat in 2007, when championed by the late Ted Kennedy and co-sponsor John McCain.

Senators Charles Schumer and Lindsey Graham have proposed using biometric identification cards as a requirement to work in the U.S.  The cards would use fingerprint or hand data to identify every American in the workforce, making it harder for undocumented immigrants to gain work inside the country.

I came across this video on YouTube discussing the issue in detail:

What do you think? Would a national ID program an invasion of privacy, as the Cato Institute’s Jim Harper argues, or would it help with enforcement?

"The President Needs to Step it Up"

-Senator Lindsey Graham, to POLITICO, this past Tuesday

I feel like I've been providing piecemeal immigration updates for months now, analyzing every update, summit, delayed meeting, and Obama quote that materializes-- which reminds me, the meeting that was supposed to take place on Monday between Lindsey Graham and Obama was delayed until today.

But alas, I digress.

Every once in a while it's important to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. This article in politico does just that. If you haven't been following the winding course, just read it and you'll pretty much know what I know. Some key excerpts:

Mark Clark is an artist with a purpose. Frustrated by efforts to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, he decided to organize "Art Against the Wall", a collection of art protesting the border fence. Clark’s concept was far from traditional, which is precisely why he got my attention.

How? He decided to debut the artwork on the wall itself, using the newly-constructed barrier as a temporary exhibition space (the collection has since moved to a nearby gallery). What makes it even more compelling is the fact that the wall is incomplete, allowing viewers to easily see the art from both sides. According to the Brownsville Herald:

Brownsville’s stretch of border fence remains incomplete. Next to the artists exhibition spot the structure cuts off, with metal poles signifying the increments where it will eventually be completed. For now, artists could view their works from both sides of the fence. On one side they could see an oil painting of the Rio Grande, viewed fence-free from that very spot. Standing on the other side, they could see the river itself.

According to the article, the collection is a visual protest to the fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. The mix of mediums and messages adds depth to the non-traditional exhibit:

About a dozen artists hung or rested their work on the fence in Hope Park, overlooking the Rio Grande. A 30-foot ladder fashioned out of bamboo and twine, a wreath of ribbon and artificial flowers measuring 8 feet in diameter, and a deflated black inner tube that had been salvaged from along the riverbank were included in the exhibition. The art flapped in the breeze for about three and a half hours before stronger winds forced the artists inside.

Meanwhile, Border Patrol stood watch of the stretch of river under the Gateway International Bridge, maintaining a distance of about 100 yards from the artists. Some artists approached the agents, who reportedly asked questions about the event but kept their opinions to themselves.

I find it particularly poignant that the fence was built through a park named "Hope". While I’m not superstitious, I can’t help but to reflect on the symbolism. Nothing is less hopeful than a wall, yet hope remains-- perhaps one day we will realize that walls do not work, and this structure will come down.

Clark’s own piece-- "La Venganza de Moctezumam," or Moctezuma’s Revenge-- confronts the enormous fear that some Americans feel about Mexicans immigrating to the U.S., depicting "dozens of Mexican figures walking through a gap in the border fence into the United States.":

Among these were a shaman dispensing peyote buttons, Americans covering their ears at the sound of a mariachi band, an unemployed McDonald’s worker selling Mexican ice cream, Mayan women washing their clothes in a blonde woman’s swimming pool, a Mayan soccer player and an American soccer player kicking around the decapitated head of a Dallas Cowboys football player, a native Mexican carving hieroglyphs into tablets of the Ten Commandments, and a statue of George Washington lying disassembled on the ground.

David Freeman, a local art professor, is one of a dozen artists participating. According to the article, Freeman said "To me the wall represents everything that’s wrong with the United States...All the malfeasance and avarice. It’s anti-democratic and anti-integration."

Agreed. A physical barrier sends the wrong message-- we should instead be building a wall of wealth, helping our two nations to grow together instead of apart. A wall suppresses rather than encourages working together to find solutions that benefit our two nations.

Clark’s exhibit is successful on many levels, incorporating the wall into the core of the exhibit and choosing Hope Park as the venue. As a visual artist myself, I am always appreciative of art that pushes boundaries and makes people think. "Art Against the Wall" does just that, all without saying a word.

Today I’m going to depart from my usual immigration topic (comprehensive immigration reform being passed in 2010, for those of you may be reading this blog for the first time) and highlight another side of a system that too often sees a case as black or white and fails to acknowledge the countless shades of grey in between. It is a story where juvenile and immigrant prosecution cross paths, where we continue to punish a person who admittedly made some terrible mistakes well after he’s lived up to his side of the bargain and clearly redeemed himself.

The New York Times featured a story Qing Hong Wu, a Chinese immigrant. In 1995 the teen, along with two others, pretended to have a gun and took a jacket from a young boy. A year later, he participated in three more muggings. Here is the article’s description of what happened at his sentencing a few months later after the teen apologized by saying "I’m sorry and I really hope that you will forgive me for all the pain and trouble I made them go through.”

The judge called the case a tragedy, according to the court transcript. “But this is not the end,” he told the youth, who had scored in the 98th percentile in mathematics. “This is really the beginning of a new period for you. I want you to educate yourself. Continue to read, follow the rules.”

“You will want to get a job and become a meaningful, constructive member of society to help your family,” he added. “I will be there to make sure that you can.”

At the time of the crimes Wu was only 15 years old. Rather than continuing down a path of petty crime, he vowed to turn his life around. Not only was he a model inmate, but he went on to study hard and work his way up the ladder from data entry clerk to VP for Internet technology at a national company. Clearly, he had turned a new leaf. And had he been an American citizen from birth, he may very well have been forgiven for turning his life around. After all, isn’t it the goal of the juvenile justice system to rehabilitate? But according to the Times:

But almost 15 years after his crimes, by applying for citizenship, Mr. Wu, 29, came to the attention of immigration authorities in a parallel law enforcement system that makes no allowances for rehabilitation. He was abruptly locked up in November as a “criminal alien,” subject to mandatory deportation to China — the nation he left at 5, when his family immigrated legally to the United States.

Now Judge Corriero, 67, retired from the bench, is trying to keep his side of the bargain.

At the time of Wu’s prosecution and sentence, it was clear he was an immigrant. If in reality he was never going to be given a chance, why wasn’t he deported then? Why tell someone they can turn their life around if in reality they are destined to fall prey to unpractical legal loopholes? That’s the question I find myself asking again and again. I sincerely hope Judge Corriero is able to keep his promise to Wu, because if anyone deserves a second chance it’s him.

In the bigger scheme of things this case is a perfect example of how law enforcement guidelines for immigrants should make allowances for rehabilitation. To not do so would be hypocritical and contrary to the core principles and goals of America’s system of justice.

Otay Mountain, just east of San Diego, is one of the most treacherous swaths of land along the U.S.-Mexico border-- a 3,500-foot rugged peak known for being one of the most grueling climbs for immigrants attempting to gain entry into the U.S. illegally. In 2006, the Department of Homeland Security said building a wall here would be unnecessary because it is already such a difficult natural barrier.

If this is the case, why did we just spend nearly $60 million to build a 3.6-mile wall in this very place? 

That’s what LA Times’ Richard Marosi asks in a new article, and frankly, there is no logical argument. I think this money could have been much better spent on other security measures or hiring more border patrol agents.  

Furthermore, the ecological harm of this and other barriers is alarming. According to Marosi:

"The federal government, trying to expedite construction of border fencing, waived more than 30 environmental laws in 2008, including the Wilderness Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act and others that environmentalists said applied to the Otay area...Contractors had to cut roads, remove boulders, bulldoze hillsides and remove about 530,000 cubic yards of rock to build the Otay fence, which consists of steel posts 4 inches apart topped with metal plates."

I found myself shaking my head as I read this article and looked at the photo of the monstrosity which now scars a once-pristine landscape:

I agree with Pedro Rios, the Director of the American Friends Service in San Diego, who pointed out that "It seems to me, if someone is able to climb the mountains in the Otay Wilderness, a 15-foot wall will not make a difference." 

The time has finally arrived. Starting March 1, it will be mandatory for U.S. citizens to have a passport when traveling to Mexico. This date had been pushed back several times, in part because agencies were flooded with applications and could not process and issues newpassports in a timley manner. In fact, I thought this was already required and was suprised to learn that the drop-dead date is still coming up.

Considering that an estimated 93% of Americans travelling from Mexico to the U.S. already have one, it should be a pretty smooth transtion. According to the Dallas Morning News:

"The new rule applies also to U.S. legal residents, who will have to show their green cards or other documents demonstrating their legal status in the U.S...

The new measure aligns itself with the State Department’s Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which since June has required U.S. travelers to show their passports to re-enter the country...

The U.S. allows children under 15 traveling with their parents to re-enter the country by showing their birth certificates.

It is not clear if Mexico will do the same or require all travelers to produce passports."

For more info on the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, click here.